The Charlotte News
Monday, January 28, 1957
TWO EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the President this date had called on Congress to act quickly in providing a 1.3 billion dollar program of Federal grants to help the states construct new schools. In his special message, the President had asked that the measure "be enacted on its own merits, uncomplicated by provisions dealing with the complex problems of integration." In the previous session, a similar bill had bogged down over efforts to attach to it an amendment which would prevent funding for school districts still practicing segregation. The previous plan presented by the Administration had been 1.25 billion dollars over five years, with the House version having raised it to 1.6 billion for four years, but having accepted the amendment by Representative Adam Clayton Powell of New York barring the aid to districts with segregated schools, winding up killing the whole bill, with the Senate never having acted on it. There was, however, every indication that there would be a repeat regarding the issue of segregation. The message also had sought 750 million dollars in Federal authorization to purchase local school construction bonds when school districts could not sell them at reasonable interest rates. The President was fulfilling a campaign pledge when he shortened the program from 5 to 4 years, seeking to make up for the lost time because of the failure of the measure the previous year. The total grant and lending authority being sought was in excess of two billion dollars. The President said that as a basic principle regarding allocation of the aid, factors including the school-age population of the state, the state's relative financial ability to meet its school needs and the "total effort within the states to provide funds for public schools" should be taken into account. His earlier proposal of the previous year had used a similar formula, which had created opposition in Congress, with members representing larger states demanding an apportionment based on school population. The President had responded to that proposal by indicating that it would tend to concentrate Federal aid in wealthy states most able to provide for their own needs.
The Government this date fired an information officer in the Far East, who had publicly denounced the President's Middle East proposed doctrine as "a blank check for one-man rule." He had been the U.S. Information Agency officer in Seoul, South Korea, and had made his criticism in Tokyo the previous day, fired by the U.S. Information Agency. He had charged in a release to the press the previous day that "profiteers, grafters and politicians" around the world had been obtaining U.S. aid funding, and objected to investigations of State Department activity and bans on travel by U.S. newsmen to Communist China, saying that he could not conscientiously support a foreign policy which he believed might lead the country "beyond the brink and into atomic war." He said, regarding U.S. atomic bases, that neither the President nor any other American would think of "letting atomic bases be planted in close proximity to us. We have no moral or inherent international right to plant them, thousands of miles from our shores, under the noses of other nations." He said that Korean farmers were being charged "about 2 1/2 times the official price" for 150 million dollars worth of U.S.-supplied fertilizer, which was supposed to be sold to the farmers at a set price, with the Korean currency collected for it placed in a counterpart fund for reconstruction in Korea, whereas a special committee of U.S. consultants had found that only 13 percent of the collections had been paid into that fund. The information officer had been a former newsman in Detroit and St. Louis, and had worked for the Information Agency since 1949. He said, in releasing the press statement, that if his exercise of free speech was deemed a breach of discipline, he was prepared to accept a request for his resignation. He exempted from responsibility the U.S. aid administrator in Korea and John McKnight, public affairs officer for the U.S. Embassy in Seoul and the U.S. information chief in Korea—and also the brother of Charlotte Observer editor Pete McKnight.
The Federal Government renewed its drive against the Hoxsey cancer treatment by mailing this date 46,000 posters describing the treatment as worthless. The Food and Drug Administration said that the poster would be displayed in post offices and substations throughout the country and was the first such advertisement ever issued against a worthless remedy. The FDA had issued its first public warning against the "cure" the prior April, indicating that the treatment was worthless and might, in some cases, actually speed the growth of cancer. The treatment was developed by Harry Hoxsey of Dallas, Tex., who had resisted Government attempts to put him out of business during the previous nine years. The FDA said that the warnings were necessary because court action against the treatment could take some time to complete. He had contended after the April warnings that they were libelous, stating that his clinics had 10,000 patients and that his record showed successful cures "after radium, X-rays and surgery" had failed. The posters indicated that the treatment cost $400, plus $60 in additional fees, which would yield nothing of value in the cure of cancer, consisting essentially of "simple drugs which are worthless for treating cancer…" The FDA said it had conducted a thorough investigation of claimed cures and had found that none of them could be verified.
Dick Young of The News reports that Mayor Philip Van Every had announced this date that he would not run for re-election during the year, an unanticipated announcement. He said that he needed to devote more time to his business and missed being with his family. He was now serving in his second two-year term. He said it had been a pleasure to serve the community.
Julian Scheer of The News reports that the odds therefore had swung heavily toward Mayor Pro Tem James Smith to be elected the next Mayor. He finds that there was strong speculation that Mr. Van Every would run for Congress in either 1958 or 1960 as a Republican, and that there was also speculation that Councilwoman Martha Evans would lead the City Council ticket, but probably had no aspirations for the mayoralty at the current time.
Ann Sawyer of The News reports that Mecklenburg County tax officials this date had advocated doing away with the poll tax in the county, one of several proposals made to the County Commission by the tax supervisor's office, with other recommended changes having to do with dog taxes, house trailers, building permits and township list takers. The Commission was also asked to oppose proposed legislation requiring motor vehicle owners to show proof of listing for ad valorem taxes before purchasing a license tag. No action had been taken on the proposals, but tax officials requested that they be studied and then presented to the Mecklenburg delegation to the 1957 General Assembly, which would begin in the first week of February. The chairman of the Commission, Sid McAden, was the only member to comment on the proposed acts, saying that he was opposed to changes in the poll and dog taxes. The proposed changes to the poll tax was that its imposition would be worded permissively rather than mandatorily as "shall", the tax being applicable to males between the ages of 21 and 50—not to be confused with a poll tax for voting, which had been abolished in North Carolina in 1920. This poll tax referred to a per capita tax, applicable to male heads of households.
Charles Kuralt of The News reports that a Federal grand jury was meeting this date in the Federal building, with three Government agents from Chicago presenting evidence to it concerning "a violation of an antitrust law", though no one was speaking about who it involved or what the evidence was, with the assistant U.S. Attorney refusing to discuss it and the members of the grand jury being sworn to secrecy. Judge Wilson Warlick had told the grand jurors that the matter they would be hearing remained a "secret in the bosom of the government", and that even he did not know what it was. It was the first Federal grand jury called in Charlotte in eight years, as they were usually called in Statesville. Some suggested that trucking could be the object of the investigation or that perhaps it was a suit against a major automobile manufacturer, but there were no hints being given. The assistant U.S. Attorney said that there were two similar cases being presented to grand juries elsewhere in the country simultaneously, but did not state where those cases were located. The Justice Department in Washington had also refused to discuss the matter. It's pretty obvious that it's them Martians again.
On the editorial page, "The Old Army Game Becomes an Art" finds that the old game of assigning skills to jobs for which persons were ill-suited appeared to be vanishing in the Army but was still popular in Congress, as was evident from the committee assignments in the new 85th Congress.
Some of the most absurd examples, it finds, had occurred on the Republican side of the aisle, with Senator John Sherman Cooper of Kentucky, who had, after his previous time as a Senator, become a distinguished Ambassador to India, performing his diplomatic duties admirably and demonstrating a keen understanding of the nation's role in Asia, now assigned, instead of to the Foreign Relations Committee, to the Rules, Labor and Public Welfare Committees. Former Representative Jacob Javits of New York, also a freshman Senator, had been a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House from 1949 to 1955, but had now been assigned to the District of Columbia and Rules Committees. Senator Thruston Morton of Kentucky, former Assistant Secretary of State, had been assigned to the Post Office, Civil Service and District of Columbia Committees. A vacancy had occurred on the Finance Committee with the retirement of Senator Eugene Millikin of Colorado, which the Republicans had filled with Senator William Jenner of Indiana, one of the most severe critics of the President, not one of the "new Republicans".
Seniority was not the only factor involved in committee assignments, with geographic distribution also taken into account. Yet, the Senate Agriculture and Forestry Committee, and, to a lesser extent, the House Agriculture Committee, had a number of members from cotton and wheat states. The Senate Interior and Insular Affairs Committee, which handled dams and reclamation projects, was manned entirely by Western Senators.
It had been said that Senate Democrats at least had made some effort to fit aptitudes to assignments and provide freshman members a fair shake. Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson had expressed the belief often that even the lowliest freshman should be assigned to at least one good committee. Thus, Senators Joseph Clark of Pennsylvania and Frank Lausche of Ohio had been assigned to the Banking and Currency Committee, and former Representative John Carroll of Colorado and Frank Church of Idaho had been assigned to Interior and Insular Affairs. In the House, D. S. Saund of California, the first native of India to be elected to Congress, was assigned to the Foreign Affairs Committee.
It finds those to be scant assignments based on reason, however, and that overwhelmingly, the Congress remained devoted to tradition which stifled progress and made legislative efficiency a distant and largely unwanted ideal.
"Congress Should Denounce Everybody" indicates that Congress was inquiring as to what U.S. foreign policy was and where it derived, while Secretary of State Dulles was attempting to supply answers as it applied to the Middle East, having great trouble, however, because it was easier to state a simple purpose of a policy, to stop the spread of Communism, than it was to arrange the difficult mechanisms of achieving the purpose. Congress was demanding an explanation or an admission of a lack of a policy because it wanted Secretary Dulles to bear the burden of any future failures of the policy.
Congress was expected to approve the so-called "Eisenhower doctrine" much as it had been proposed. If it did so, it would be supplying the answer to the second question, that foreign policy derived from the President and the State Department. But the Congress was not willing to have the executive branch bring Yugoslavia's Marshal Tito to the country for a state visit and there were indications that pressure would be brought in the form of denying aid to Yugoslavia if it occurred. But if the State Department canceled the visit, it would have a negative impact on the State Department's policy of encouraging the breakdown of the satellite system, as Tito had been the first rebel against the domination of Moscow, followed by rebellions of the type in Poland and Hungary. Such a breakdown of that policy would leave the latter two countries threatened by Moscow and unable to resist the threats without assurance of Western support, thus not encouraging other satellites to follow suit.
It urges that Congress, to be consistent, ought therefore cancel the visit of King Saud of Saudi Arabia, a dictator and a polygamist supported by U.S. oil interests, cancel all present aid and express regrets for extending previous aid to Generalissimo Francisco Franco of Spain, sever relations with West Germany, Italy and Japan for past crimes against humanity, denounce the numerous dictators in South America and withdraw aid and assistance from them, denounce the Administration for not assisting the British-French-Israeli efforts to topple Egyptian dictator Gamal Abdel Nasser, in their invasion of November, and deny any aid to the Iraqi dictatorship threatened by designs of the Nasser dictatorship.
It suggests that those steps would make a tentative start toward clearing Congress of the suggestion of hypocrisy implied in complaints against the visit by Tito for his being a Communist. Without U.S. aid of about a billion dollars approved by Congress for Tito, however, he long since would have been swept aside by the Kremlin, and the prospect of using him as an example for other strategic gains against the Soviets would not be in the offing.
As Congress had forcefully reminded Secretary Dulles for the previous two weeks, he had to bear the responsibility of U.S. foreign policy. It followed that he should be allowed to make that policy, of which encouragement of Titoism was a vital part. Otherwise, Congress had to share the responsibility and tell the country what policy it had in mind for the Middle East and the eventual freedom of the satellite states.
Simeon Stylites, writing in the Christian Century, in a piece titled, "The King of Indoor Sports", indicates that recently he had written about the king of indoor sports, reading aloud in the family. One member had told him that he was a washed-up relic of the Victorian age, when there had been no movies, while another had wondered aloud what they would read, as their kids did not fall for Elsie Dinsmore or the Rover Boys. He had replied with the suggestions taken from the list of "Read Aloud Books" of the Brooklyn public library. That library had been conducting a highly successful campaign for reading aloud in the family, and the list had come from the experience of hundreds of families, lists which he provides both for young adults and for adults. The latter included Benchley Roundup, edited by Nathaniel Benchley, The Best of Clarence Day, Circus Doctor, by J. Y. Henderson, Cry, the Beloved Country, by Alan Paton, The Devil and Daniel Webster, by Stephen Vincent Benet, Fables for Our Time, by James Thurber, Modern British Poetry, edited by Louis Untermeyer, North with the Spring, by Edwin Way Teale, Our Hearts Were Young and Gay, by Cornelia Otis Skinner and Emily Kimbrough, and The Second Tree from the Corner, by E. B. White.
He indicates that it would do for a starter and quotes Cornelia Otis Skinner as saying: "One of the most valuable heritages of my life was the fact that as a child my father read aloud a great deal to my mother and me."
Drew Pearson indicates that AFL-CIO president George Meany was scheduled to take on Dave Beck, the head of the Teamsters Union, the biggest union in the world, in a Miami meeting during the week. He had tangled with Mr. Beck previously, chiefly regarding the latter's sponsorship of the racket-ridden International Longshoremen's Union, which the AFL-CIO had outlawed. In the earlier confrontation, Mr. Beck had backed down. But this time, there would be a more serious showdown, for the reputation and honesty of organized labor was at stake following the refusal of Teamster officials to answer questions before the Senate Investigating Committee. Mr. Meany and the AFL-CIO executive council had taken a strong stand for clean unions and meant it. Mr. Beck, therefore, would have to talk fast or face the prospect of being purged.
Mr. Pearson sets forth some things in Mr. Beck's background which he and other Teamster regional heads were not anxious to discuss with Congress. The previous year, he had sold a total of $890,000 worth of real estate in Seattle, with it not being clear why he had done so and where he had obtained that much property in the first place. It was known that he had been under income tax investigation, and the sale of the real estate might have been to secure a capital gains tax break to pay tax assessments. The IRS had been investigating whether Mr. Beck had been paid by the Teamsters more than $163,000 for his house as a gift or as income. Mr. Beck had sold the house to the Teamsters with the proviso that he continue to live in it, and had also sold his furniture to the union for a reported $90,000. It had been reported at a recent Senate hearing that a Seattle contractor had also been paid from Teamster funds for repairs to Mr. Beck's home.
Mr. Beck had been opposed to General Eisenhower in the 1952 presidential campaign, and so it was surprising to labor when he suddenly endorsed the President in 1956. Some had remarked that he was pulling "an Adam Clayton Powell", Mr. Powell having also endorsed the President after getting into tax trouble the prior summer.
Mr. Meany believed that labor leaders should not profit from the unions they represented. Mr. Pearson provides the details of the sale of the real estate in Seattle.
Stewart Alsop indicates that four years earlier, he and his brother, Joseph, had pointed out three "tremendous challenges" which confronted President Eisenhower in his first term, to establish his political leadership of the Republican Party, establish his ideological leadership of the party, and not merely to carry on where President Truman had left off, but to find bold, positive solutions for the problems which plagued the U.S. across the world.
He suggests that, while it had taken the President awhile to do it, he had met the first two challenges, considering it "triumphant" because of the conditions which had prevailed during his first two years, when Republicans controlled both houses of Congress, causing bitter rows between the White House and the conservative wing of the party, for example, the row with the right wing Republicans in the Senate, led by Senator McCarthy, regarding the confirmation of Charles Bohlen as Ambassador to the Soviet Union, and the concurrent row with the House conservatives, led by Representative Daniel Reed, regarding the President's budget tax program. In both cases, the President had his way in the end, but only with the help of Democrats, albeit with other such conflicts with fellow Republicans having followed in series.
During those earlier times, the President had often seemed uncertain of his power and had been unwilling to use it. He had been so often frustrated by his own party that he talked seriously of forming a third party. The Republicans had been out of power for so long during the 20 years of FDR and Harry Truman that they had formed the habit of regarding the White House occupant as their natural enemy, such that the notion of accepting the President's political or ideological leadership had hardly occurred to them.
But at present, Senator McCarthy had receded into the background and there was no one else in the party who would think seriously of challenging the President's leadership. The response to his recent budget message, which proposed the largest peacetime budget in history, higher by many billions in non-defense matters than any budget ever proposed by President Truman, provided a prime example. If the President had submitted such a budget in the first two years of his first term, the Congressional leaders among Republicans would have exploded, but now, the President's authority was such that the resistance of Republicans in Congress was confined to private mutterings, with the only open opposition coming from Secretary of the Treasury George Humphrey.
Regarding the President's willingness to use his authority, it was only necessary to consider the so-called "Eisenhower doctrine", in which the President had proposed that Congress provide him authority to use force, including ground troops, if necessary, to resist any overt military aggression by Communists in the Middle East, and to authorize him to use up to 200 million dollars during the year for economic and military aid for the region. The President had started his second term with that request, something that even FDR, at the height of his power, would have never dared to seek. Mr. Alsop posits that the new willingness to use that power of the Presidency to its full advantage might augur well regarding the third of the three challenges he and his brother had listed four years earlier, the need to find bold and positive solutions for problems, something which the President in his first term had not really accomplished, instead having established a policy of accepting the status quo.
He regards it as clear that things would not remain as they were for very much longer, the President having remarked in his second inaugural address that no nation could escape the "tempest of change and turmoil" at work in the world. He regards the whole tone of the address as suggesting that the President was determined to meet the third challenge, one which was difficult to accomplish. "But given the enormous authority which the President now exercises, and the whole power of the United States, it should not be impossible to meet."
A letter writer disagrees with the Eisenhower doctrine for the Middle East, finding it "too loud-mouthed, obvious" and having too much the quality of one-man action. He prefers the method of Theodore Roosevelt, to speak softly and carry a big stick. He finds President Eisenhower practically threatening indirect subversion of the small, weak Middle East countries by war. He suggests that the big oil interests in the country had no doubt made money from the scarcity of oil resulting from the Suez crisis, and also suggests that the proposed policy was simply another form of disguised colonialism.
A letter writer reacts to a letter
writer who had been offended that singer Betty Johnson had not
revealed recently on the "Ed Sullivan Show" that she was
from Charlotte, rather stating that she was from "Possum Walk",
N.C. He says that on a recent Arthur Godfrey
That, incidentally, is a new one to us, as we have never heard of Hamburg, except the one in Germany. There are plenty of well-known German connections to Forsyth County, but Hamburg is not one of them.
A letter writer from Rock Hill, S.C., wonders whether the stag dinner planned for King Saud of Saudi Arabia at the White House would feature dancing girls, which he understands was the custom in Saudi Arabia. The King and his retinue would arrive on January 30 and the King and the President were expected to discuss how to save the Middle East for democracy. He suggests that slavery in Saudi Arabia would likely not be discussed or such topics as the price for a young female under 14, which was supposed to be between $500 and $1,000, depending on her condition. The King's income amounted to 300 million dollars per year from the Arab-American Oil Company, and he suggests that the King would be placing a price on U.S. use of the airbase the U.S. had built in Dharan, it having been reported that he was seeking 50 million dollars per year in rent, despite U.S. military chaplains being forbidden to wear the cross and GI's of the Jewish faith, not allowed to serve at the base. He says that it was also reported that Saudi Arabia would be seeking military supplies under an ultimatum which threatened acceptance of Russian arms instead should the U.S. not comply. He concludes that reports of the meeting would be fun to read.
A letter writer says that he had gotten the impression from reading recent letters to the editor that the majority of people at present were very pessimistic about world peace, with one contributor having asked how the country was equipped to meet the danger of a threat of war in Central Europe, appearing to believe that land armies and nuclear weaponry would be necessary. This writer suggests that the only reason the country was in such a position was because Christ was completely behind it, but first, the country had to be completely behind Christ to be led to peace. He urges, as one previous contributor had said, "Let's think it over, and prayerfully."
A letter writer agrees with the previous letter writer who had written about Ms. Johnson on the "Ed Sullivan Show" and suggests that she owed Charlotte a plug. She says that she had also seen Ms. Johnson on "Breakfast Club" and that she never mentioned Charlotte there either. She says that she enjoyed her and the Johnson Family very much and wants to know if they were on the radio at present, that she liked to see people make good.
A letter from the director of Charlotte College thanks the newspaper for its reporting on their tenth anniversary, especially recognizing Charles Kuralt, editor Cecil Prince, and the photographer who had provided their celebration an excellent presentation. She also singles out Thomas L. Robinson, publisher of the newspaper.
Framed Edition
Links-Date — Links-Subj.